


Things Fall Apart

by tomatopudding



Category: Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: Drugs, M/M, Mild Language, Psychotropic Drugs, RPS - Freeform, Sexual Content, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-20 19:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve been called the Beatles of the new generation, and their fame has been skyrocketing. But things are never as they seem in the world of the Mighty Boosh. As the boys are plunged into a world of drugs, sex, booze, and rock ‘n roll, will the band survive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Fall Apart

Julian Barratt first met the Fielding brothers through a mutual acquaintance. The brothers were playing in a band called NoMi, backed up by a sullen-looking drummer and greasy-haired bass guitarist, playing covers of tuneless rock songs to an uninterested crowd.

The elder Fielding brother was Noel, a sharp-featured boy a few months younger than Julian who played rhythm guitar and sang the lead vocals. Julian was immediately drawn to the androgynous young man, entranced by gritty, untrained voice and swaying hips.

Michael, the younger Fielding, was two years younger that his brother’s sixteen and played lead guitar, his fingers dancing through lines of complicated riffs, eyes always downcast. Michael’s fingers captivated Julian almost as much as the elder brother’s hips did.

After the set finished to a smattering of lukewarm applause, Matt - Julian’s current flatmate and Noel’s friend - led the way to the small stage. Handshakes were exchanged and introductions were made. It didn’t take long before Noel and Julian were chattering away like old friends, singing bits of unfinished songs to each other and making up lyrics like they were born doing it together. By the time the evening was out, Noel and Julian had plans to make a band together as soon as the Fieldings finished their remaining gigs with NoMi. That was the beginning.

______________

They began like NoMi had been, playing random small gigs in parks and shopping centres, calling themselves FBF. Michael was more than happy to give over a majority of the guitar solos to Julian’s more than capable hands, choosing instead to stay in the background playing a lower harmony of Noel’s rhythm guitar part.

They evolved to playing small clubs on the outskirts of Brixton, along the way picking up an eccentric manager by the name of Steve Coogan. It was with Steve’s guidance that they realized three guitars didn’t make a band, so Michael put down his Gibson and picked up a bass guitar. The band’s name had changed with them and was now called Arctic Boosh, a strange combination of words that they had come up with late one night.

As their popularity rose, Steve passed along comments from various people saying that they felt the band was missing something. It was the usually quiet Michael who pointed out that they had no drummer. The very next day, Steve presented them with a boy Julian’s age by the name of Rich Fulcher.

Rich was a rowdy American who was very loud and in-your-face. The kid was good, Julian had to give him that, and the Arctic Boosh’s popularity had skyrocketed since the last piece fell into place, but Rich had the nasty habit of getting in between people. For the first time since they had met, Noel and Julian found themselves arguing over the tiniest things, causing a rift not only between the two friends, but between the Fielding brothers as well.

Only a few months after the band’s conception, Steve got them a gig at the Velvet Onion, a high class club in Dalston. The band’s reception was incredible. Everything would have gone fine if Rich hadn’t suddenly decided to change up the percussion lines of one of the songs. Although they left the stage to thunderous applause, once they got into the small backstage/dressing room area, things went sour.

‘What the fuck was that?‘ Noel exploded.

‘Chill out, man,‘ Rich replied smoothly, scratching his pudgy belly, ‘It worked, didn’t it?’

‘It was wrong,‘ Noel insisted, looking to Julian for support.

‘Oh, right, take his side like you always do,’ Rich sneered when the older boy nodded.

Julian was a tall, rather imposing figure, even at sixteen, and he now drew himself to his full height, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means,’ Rich replied, getting into Julian’s face as much as he could, ‘that you always agree with Noel and never have your own opinions. Pussy.’

‘I do have my own opinions, you fat fuck,’ Julian told him, staying calm despite the insult, ‘and my opinion is that you need to leave.’

‘Fine,’ Rich spat, ‘I never wanted to be in this stupid fucking band anyway. I hope you fail miserably.’

With that, the American pocked his drumsticks and stormed out the back door and into the night. The other door, the one that led out into the club, slammed open as Steve burst through, grinning hugely.

‘Guys, that was fantastic!’ he exclaimed, ‘Hold on, where’s Rich?’

‘Gone,’ Noel replied, ‘He’s out.’

Steve’s grin drooped, ‘Really, Noel, was that absolutely necessary?’

‘I didn’t do it, Jude did,’ Noel told him, tilting his head in Julian’s direction.

‘He didn’t fit,’ Julian said in his own defense, ‘He was tearing us apart and making us argue.’

Noel and Michael nodded in unison in agreement and Steve sighed.

‘You’d better hope you find a drummer soon,’ he warned, ‘Because I’ve just booked you a run here starting next week.’

_________________

As it turned out, it wasn't really that difficult to find a replacement for Rich. It was Michael who mentioned a friend from the year above him in school, when he had still be going, who could play drums. The very next day, a boy named Dave Brown dropped out of school to join the band.

Although it was a little rocky at first - Michael’s hero worship of Dave made Noel slightly jealous - the older Fielding brother soon warmed up to their new Londoner companion. With the addition of Dave, the music just seemed to click together in a way it hadn’t before.

Their gigs at the Velvet Onion began to get more and more crowded, becoming standing room only before the first week was out.

The band, who’s name had been changed to Mighty Boosh, had even caught the eye of the illustrious Pieface Record Company and were soon set up with a recording session. Noel and Julian begged Steve until he agreed to let them record one of their original compositions.

Only a few days after being released, Yeti Magic - music and lyrics by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, respectively - was top of the charts in Dalston.

__________________

Fame has a strange way a spreading. By the time Julian turned seventeen, Mighty Boosh was topping the charts throughout England and beginning a slow crawl across Wales and Scotland.

With this fame came famous friends. It was a singer by the name of Russell Brand who first introduced them to the darker side of rock and roll.

Noel was the first one to try drugs. He came home from one of Russell’s parties late one night to the flat the four of them shared with his pupils blown wide and reeking of pot. He collapsed across Dave and Julian’s legs where they seated on the sofa, all huge grins and giggles. When they got the whole story out of their band-mate, Julian was furious. He gave Noel’s semi-conscious form a stern talk about drugs and their health risks.

Noel replied with a spaced, ‘Relax, man,' almost sounding exactly like Rich Fulcher had.

Julian was struck speechless. Dave slid out from under Noel’s sprawled legs with a mumbled ‘I’ll leave you to it’ and retreated to the room he shared with Michael. Julian sat upright on the couch and caught glazed-over gray-blue eyes with his own brown ones.

‘Listen to me, Noel Fielding,‘ Julian said firmly, waiting until Noel focused before continuing, ‘You don’t want to get into these types of things.’

‘Relax,‘ Noel said again, ‘It’s not like I’m going to do it every day.’

Noel kept his word. For a while, at least. He returned from Russell’s next party stoned again with a joint still tucked behind one ear. Julian’s ‘talking to‘ turned into a shouting match that probably woke Dave and Michael. It ended with a slammed door and unresolved anger on both sides.

The next morning, a mollified Noel gave Julian a mumbled apology about his behavior and a promise that it wouldn’t happen again. He was unable to keep that promise.

Noel brought Julian, Dave, and Michael to Russell’s big Halloween party - only a day after Noel had his seventeenth birthday - and that was when everything went to shit.

As soon as they stepped inside, all four boys had bottles pressed into their hands. Only a couple hours in, they were completely out of it. Dave and Michael were sharing a hookah in some random room of Russell’s large house while Noel and Julian were in some other room, both drunk, with Noel holding a freshly rolled joint in his fingers.

‘I don’t know if I can,‘ Julian was saying, eyeing the joint warily.

Noel sighed, lighting the joint and taking a drag. he held it out to Julian and the older boy took it gingerly. He managed to get it up to his lips, but couldn’t bring himself to use it. Noel rolled his eyes and snagged the joint back.

‘C’mere,‘ Noel commanded.

Julian complied, scooting over to sit beside his friend.

‘This is how Russell showed me,‘ Noel murmured.

He took another drag of the joint, holding the smoke in his mouth. Noel grabbed the collar of Julian’s shirt and pulled him close, pressing their lips together. Julian gave a little mumble of surprise, his mouth popping open slightly. Noel used his tongue to push Julian’s mouth open further, letting the smoke from the pot flow into the older boy’s mouth.

Julian inhaled. feeling the smoke slide smoothly down his throat. When Noel tried to pull away, his job done, Julian pulled him back, his tongue sweeping through his younger friend’s mouth. Noel let out a moan, reciprocating the kiss hungrily.

The joint lay forgotten on the floor.

_________________

After that night, it seemed that Mighty Boosh was suddenly thrust into the world on fast-forward. As their fame grew, so did their vices. By the time Mighty Boosh was preparing for their first American tour, their flat was almost perpetually filled with some sort of smoke. Julian and Noel shared a bed more often than not with Dave and Michael doing the same - except for one night where a bad trip found Julian waking up with the wrong Fielding beside him.

Steve was getting worried about his boys, but whenever he mentioned it, his concerns were brushed off.

__________________

Mighty Boosh was at the height of its fame, but things were not going well within the band.

It all started when Julian slept with Dave while both were sober. This resulted in anger from both Fielding brothers.

The second step was Michael’s near-death experience with a batch of bad acid. This had ended in the hospital with Noel shedding some of the only tears Julian had ever seen him produce.

The final straw that broke the camel’s back actually had couple separate, but related, events leading up to it. The first was Noel’s fault. It was at a party - not Russell’s for once - and Julian had stayed home ill. Noel had started out by hanging with his brother, but when the younger Fielding, now sixteen, started getting a little bit handsy with Dave, Noel abandoned the idea and ventured back out into the party alone. In his defense, there was quite a lot of alcohol and a significant amount of drugs involved, but the fact of the matter was that when Noel woke up the next morning, there was a random girl in his bed and an angry, but still ill, Julian glaring down at him.

The next piece of the equation was Julian’s own foray into the world of heterosexuality. With the same girl. This made Noel a lot angrier than he thought it would, considering the fact that they were now “even”. With tensions running high between Noel and Julian, their writing suffered. For the first time since Yeti Magic had hit the charts, a Barratt/Fielding song didn’t even make a blip on the musical radar.

Mighty Boosh was falling apart.

__________________

It didn’t take long after that for the band to dissolve. Julian returned to his home town of Leeds and holed himself up in a small, two room flat; Noel went to America to pursue an acting career and landed a gig on some crappy sitcom; Michael and Dave kept the London flat the band had been staying in and continued to live a happy, albeit quieter, life; Steve was sad to see it all end.

__________________

It was years before they saw each other again. On Michael’s twenty-third birthday, he and Dave traveled to the States to visit Noel. Both Fielding brothers were completely clean of drugs, Noel because he had been sent to rehab by the producers of his sitcom and Michael because of a bad needle that had resulted in an AIDS scare.

The three were sitting in Noel’s living room just chatting and catching up when a tentative knock came at Noel’s door. The elder Fielding opened the door to reveal Julian, looking older than his twenty-six years because of a mustache he had grown.

‘Hi,’ Julian said shyly.

‘Hey,’ Noel replied, just as shyly.

‘Mike invited me,’ Julian said, feeling like he needed to explain his presence.

‘Right.’

It was no secret that Julian and Noel were both responsible for the demise of Mighty Boosh, but when Julian stepped into the flat, the tension from all those years seemed to just melt away. Julian couldn’t stop himself from pulling Noel into a bone-crushing hug, the younger man burying him face into the crook of Julian’s neck.

‘Missed you,’ Noel mumbled into Julian’s collar bone.

‘I missed you too, little man.’

When they pulled apart, Julian cleared his throat awkwardly.

‘D’you,’ he began, falter, tried again, ‘D’you think we could try just being friends again?’

‘No band, no drugs,’ Noel said.

‘No sex,’ Julian added.

‘Yet,’ Noel teased, waggling his eyebrows.

Julian couldn’t help but smile, ‘Yeah yeah, we’ll see about that.’

Julian linked his arm with Noel’s and two men walked together into Noel’s living room.


End file.
